Could someone please explain why Blizzard doesn't fine-tune their "lots of knobs" ?

[Wilfire]

Referring to this chart: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...=95&bracket=20

There is a 22.7% ST dps difference between the top (excluding SPs for obvious reasons) spec (Arms) and bottom spec (BM). Why can't Blizzard apply a hotfix to buff BM damage by 22.7% to bring it in line with Arms and do that with the rest of specs as well until there is a +-1% difference between the bottom and top specs? I get it that different specs are supposed to have different strength but compromising on ST performance is unhealthy since a lot of encounters require you to burst the boss or an add down in a certain amount of time. Spec utility to differentiate between specs exists for a reason.

[Khain]

Because that's a single target fight and Hunter's niche right now is AoE, if you buff Hunter's single target by 22% single target specs such as arms, ret pally and SP become pointless.

[Wilfire]

Because that's a single target fight and Hunter's niche right now is AoE, if you buff Hunter's single target by 22% single target specs such as arms, ret pally and SP become pointless.

Survival's niche is single target as well and yet it's miles behind other single target specs.

[Schattenlied]

Because that's a single target fight and Hunter's niche right now is AoE, if you buff Hunter's single target by 22% single target specs such as arms, ret pally and SP become pointless.

So you also buff their AoE to put them in line with Hunter's AoE, I don't see how this is a difficult concept to grasp... That should have been a given, seeing as the whole point of the thread is making DPS equal in their job (which is doing damage).

Their different strengths should be utility, and burst vs sustained DPS. Take Ret for example, we do hilariously high DPS when Crusade is rolling, and very low when it's not... Our sustained damage is very low to make up for our insane burst, but over a fight it evens out... So, we can burst very hard during burn phases, but if there are constant streams of priority adds, someone with more consistent sustained damage is better there, but over the course of a fight we both actually do the same amount of damage.

Everyone should be equally good at just "AoE and ST" because they are required for things... Most mythic+ groups running the really hard stuff won't even consider taking classes that only do good ST damage because trash takes so much of the runtime, so they stack strong AoE classes... How is that fair to the "ST specialists"?

[Dawnrage]

Based off past observations so just my opinion, but my guess is that it's several things that is not as simple as "buff X spec by X%". If it's that simple to think up, obviously it would be simple to do right? Well, here's my thoughts.

1) They don't want people to have to flipflop specs constantly. DPS really only matters to raiders/mythic+ runners for the most part, so I'm only going to talk about those group of people. Imagine logging in one day as a hunter and suddenly finding out survival is your best spec now when you're marks. Buffing a spec by a certain amount to match another spec may sound that simple, but the reality is that people tend to gravitate to what performs the best, even if it's by a small margin. If you look at the 3 hunter specs, they are all viable to play (as a hunter), but there are 2.8k MM parses compared to the 671 BM parses, and 36 for survival. You might argue that it's because people don't like the playstyle, but you guys know better - the majority of people just want to play what's best, and what people tell them is best because they don't want to figure out themselves if something is better or not. It's similar to the one blue post they had about fire mages and why they don't want to buff the other specs up, though not as drastic.

2) Data is skewed. Yeah I know, statistics say that even with the small sample size of say the 36 survival parses vs the 2.8k MM parses, it will still even out even if more people played survival. I agree, but also disagree at the same time. 36 is just way too small a pool to compare against that many people, especially since something like parses are not static data, and can have huge variable just based off skill cap (which the majority of good hunters would be playing MM to begin with), gear level, the way your raid handles each encounter, and even stuff like trinket procs. So to do a kneejerk buff because of that is just as bad as a kneejerk nerf, though obviously in the case of certain specs being strong like arms and shadow, they have enough data to know those specs are outliers right? Which leads to...

Everyone should be equally good at just "AoE and ST" because they are required for things... Most mythic+ groups running the really hard stuff won't even consider taking classes that only do good ST damage because trash takes so much of the runtime, so they stack strong AoE classes... How is that fair to the "ST specialists"?

I'm not a master at classes considering I don't play everything, but here's my understanding of things -

MM hunters rely on having their proc (or trueshot) up to do good AoE. Let's say you want a shadow priest to match their AoE output, since they have god-horrible AoE as everyone knows. Our only AoE spell is a spell we channel at no cost, no restriction, nothing of that sort. If it was able to output the same kind of DPS a hunter does, that would basically mean we would have an AoE as strong as hunter, without any of the setbacks a hunter would have.

So what does that mean? It means you need to build shadow's AoE toolkit to match a hunters right? In order to have them have the same restrictions and drawbacks to be able to output their DPS, but if you do that, what makes shadow's AoE different from a hunter besides just looking different? How would you go about keeping each spec's identity to be able to achieve something like that when you have that many specs?

People want to argue it, but identity is pretty important. If every class played the same (and they would have to if you want them doing the same amount of damage in both ST and AoE), then what's the difference between a priest and a warrior? Better yet, why play a melee when you can play range and do all the same things melee can much easier (which is also part of the problem I'm sure). There's a whole bunch of other cans of worms that open up that isn't very apparent.

So that's my shitty look at things as they stand. The best thing Blizzard can achieve is to give everyone niches like they are trying to do, but they keep forgetting that ST is probably the most important niche out of everything else someone can do. ST is not easy to balance though, because I think that turning up the damage of a skill by a certain percentage might have severe consequences of changing the rotation in to something less enjoyable/playable, or completely change how you prioritize your abilities. It might also make it so that you would just perform ST rotation even in an AoE pull just because your ST skills are so much stronger (and buffing AoE up to compensate for that just leads to your spec becoming the next overpowered one and someone else needs to get buffed up etc - aka endless cycle of buffs). Not to mention that with talent trees, doing that would also just further invalidate certain talent choices, to the point where situational talents would just outright never ever be touched at all, which is the case for some specs right now. They are trying to remedy this with the PTR and stuff though, but obviously all that takes time and testing, and is not as simple as "buff X spec".

[Deleted]

if they buffed the weakest spec to match the best spec as it is now, the weakest spec would then overtake the best spec by 5-10% once the best players start playing them. being 95 percentile is a spec that nobody plays doesn't mean you can apply to method right away, specs like this just aren't represented equally along all skill levels to make any good statistics.

then there is the question of who do you balance for? top100guilds? top1000 guilds? heroic guilds? m+? the 80% of people who barely raid at all?

[Schattenlied]

then there is the question of who do you balance for? top100guilds? top1000 guilds? heroic guilds? m+? the 80% of people who barely raid at all?

As with PvP balance, it should almost exclusively be based on balancing around the high end, because that is where the data is most accurate... So I would say, maybe top 1000... And that should include Blizzard finding a way to incentivize people in the high end to play and parse the less played specs (maybe on test servers so they can be given free AP/relics for those specs that won't disrupt live) so that they can get enough data for them and properly determine whether or not they actually need buffs.

[Deleted]

Referring to this chart: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...=95&bracket=20

There is a 22.7% ST dps difference between the top (excluding SPs for obvious reasons) spec (Arms) and bottom spec (BM).

Classes are different. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Survival's niche is single target as well and yet it's miles behind other single target specs.

There's only 36 parses for SV in that chart of yours. And 0 parses for Frost DK and Fury Warriors :-P
And 2,880 for MM hunters. I don't think you should be jumping to too many conclusions based on that data

[Knaar]

Blizzard has never been able to balance SV anyway.
Now that SV is melee, they still dont know what to do with it

(tho i must say the "patch" for SV mid WoD that buffed them by 50% overall was fun too see, yet they were still rock bottom in dps, that just showed how clueless blizzard is about SV)

[Wilfire]

Classes are different. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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There's only 36 parses for SV in that chart of yours. And 0 parses for Frost DK and Fury Warriors :-P
And 2,880 for MM hunters. I don't think you should be jumping to too many conclusions based on that data

The point isn't this particular set of data, you can choose any (https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...841&bracket=17 for example) and still see that (mostly) the same specs are rock bottom. Blizzard can literally apply hotfixex every day to balance the performance of different specs and yet they opt to preserve the status quo for months at a time. This wasn't such a big problem during previous x-packs since you could easily switch specs and classes but in Legion if you make a bad call you get locked into it.

[Deleted]

As with PvP balance, it should almost exclusively be based on balancing around the high end, because that is where the data is most accurate... So I would say, maybe top 1000... And that should include Blizzard finding a way to incentivize people in the high end to play and parse the less played specs (maybe on test servers so they can be given free AP/relics for those specs that won't disrupt live) so that they can get enough data for them and properly determine whether or not they actually need buffs.

i'd agree that balance has tighter tolerances on high skill levels then on lower skill levels, but focusing efforts largely on any one skill level just leads to wonky results in the other skill levels.

(also i thought this was funny how you worded it, but combat parses from people who press the wrong buttons are just as accurate as parses from people who press the correct buttons, moreover, they are just as valid too, since i'm guessing skill is a normal distribution)

[Nevcairiel]

So you also buff their AoE to put them in line with Hunter's AoE, I don't see how this is a difficult concept to grasp... That should have been a given, seeing as the whole point of the thread is making DPS equal in their job (which is doing damage).

Not all classes are created equal, and they are not all meant to perform exactly the same in every situation.
Some classes/specs are stronger in ST, some are stronger in AoE (also various types of AoE, long sustained, short bursts, 2-3 target cleave, etc), some are middle-of-the-pack in both, and that is intentional.

Clearly there is some balance issues for some specs yet to be resolved, however expecting every spec to perform equally everywhere is just never going to happen, because its not their goal. They want a bit of diversity based on the nature of the fight.

[Schattenlied]

i'd agree that balance has tighter tolerances on high skill levels then on lower skill levels, but focusing efforts largely on any one skill level just leads to wonky results in the other skill levels.

Yes, let's balance around people playing wrong instead of playing right, that seems logical... If you are playing wrong you should do worse, if you are playing right you should do better... No consideration should be given to balancing around playing wrong, if they don't care about their performance enough to learn and get better, they rightfully shouldn't do well.

Wonky results are what SHOULD happen when a person doesn't play the spec right.

(also i thought this was funny how you worded it, but combat parses from people who press the wrong buttons are just as accurate as parses from people who press the correct buttons, moreover, they are just as valid too, since i'm guessing skill is a normal distribution)

they are accurate in showing what the person did, not what the spec is capable of, if they are pressing the wrong buttons they are playing the spec wrong, therefore it is an inaccurate representation of it's capabilities.

however expecting every spec to perform equally everywhere is just never going to happen, because its not their goal. They want a bit of diversity based on the nature of the fight.

I don't expect them to perform the same, I expect them to be close enough that some aren't outright excluded from certain activities just because they don't do something well enough, like every ST focused spec in high level mythic+... We are currently far from that right now... Being geared enough for mythic+10-12 and being declined from every group because "Ret's AoE for trash sucks" is not a fun feeling, it doesn't matter that I melt bosses, because bosses aren't the time consuming part of M+ and all that matters is beating the timer.

[Nevcairiel]

I don't expect them to perform the same, I expect them to be close enough that some aren't outright excluded from certain activities just because they don't do something well enough, like every ST focused spec in high level mythic+... We are currently far from that right now... Being geared enough for mythic+10-12 and being declined from every group because "Ret's AoE for trash sucks" is not a fun feeling, it doesn't matter that I melt bosses, because bosses aren't the time consuming part of M+.

The problem in that isn't your specs performance but players mindset. You could be much closer in DPS and they would still exclude you because others are still stronger, even if the difference is small.

In short, make your own group. Rets performance is fine to do all of that, players are just excluding you because they can.

[Rhyzoh]

I get it that different specs are supposed to have different strength

But I want to be top single target, have good AoE, be mobile, have an immunity, and be able to attack from a distance

[Lartok]

There is a 22.7% ST dps difference between the top (excluding SPs for obvious reasons) spec (Arms) and bottom spec (BM). Why can't Blizzard apply a hotfix to buff BM damage by 22.7% to bring it in line with Arms and do that with the rest of specs as well until there is a +-1% difference between the bottom and top specs? I get it that different specs are supposed to have different strength but compromising on ST performance is unhealthy since a lot of encounters require you to burst the boss or an add down in a certain amount of time. Spec utility to differentiate between specs exists for a reason.

What spec utility are you talking about if it's not AoE/ST DPS or burst potential? Because I don't think you have any grasp on how spec utility differentiates specs or the 'reason' for it.

So you also buff their AoE to put them in line with Hunter's AoE, I don't see how this is a difficult concept to grasp... That should have been a given, seeing as the whole point of the thread is making DPS equal in their job (which is doing damage).

Their different strengths should be utility, and burst vs sustained DPS. Take Ret for example, we do hilariously high DPS when Crusade is rolling, and very low when it's not... Our sustained damage is very low to make up for our insane burst, but over a fight it evens out... So, we can burst very hard during burn phases, but if there are constant streams of priority adds, someone with more consistent sustained damage is better there, but over the course of a fight we both actually do the same amount of damage.

Everyone should be equally good at just "AoE and ST" because they are required for things... Most mythic+ groups running the really hard stuff won't even consider taking classes that only do good ST damage because trash takes so much of the runtime, so they stack strong AoE classes... How is that fair to the "ST specialists"?

If everyone has the same AoE and ST damage then it becomes, take the class that does the best burst or sustained dps depending on what the "encounter" calls for, so the exact same problem really. Mind you how does one class do the same DPS as another class but be better at sustained DPS, what time frame are we balancing these classes at 53.2 seconds?

[Deleted]

Yes, let's balance around people playing wrong instead of playing right, that seems logical... If you are playing wrong you should do worse, if you are playing right you hsould do better... No consideration should be given to balancing around playing wrong, if they don't care about their performance enough to learn and get better, they rightfully shouldn't do very well.

ofcourse you should do worse if you are less skilled. but the question is how many mistakes are you allowed to make before you can't complete a certain task.

to take an extreme example: you could make a spec where you have to press 20 buttons correctly in 12 seconds on a 0.5sec GCD with various procs with different priorities, if you do it correctly you one shot the boss.

with a stupid spec like this, only the most skilled can succeed, and everybody else fails. this is fine if you balance focuses on the most skilled. obviously in reality this kind of disparity between bad and good players is unacceptable, and you have to balance for bad players too. which brings us back to the question of how many mistakes is allowed before you fail?

[Deleted]

The point isn't this particular set of data, you can choose any

And they all have the same problem. The community sees some specs better than others so they end up having 1000 times more parses than the classes that "suck".

The point is - if you're not on the bleediing edge of the progression (like, let's say top 100 guild) - that percentage variance has very little difference to the success of your raid. You have most likely other, more severe problems, than 10-20% DPS variance between specs.

If you are in top100 guilds, then that kinda sucks, but you are the hardcore of the hardcores, so it's not a big deal to switch to one of your 6 alts who are equally geared up and ready to go through M+ and split runs. You have those ready anyway, since sometimes you need to switch based on encounters/strats, right?

[gcsmith]

Yes, buff hunter dps... then why bring a arms warrior? Hunters get hit by less mechanics etc...

[Woop Woop]

But I want to be top single target, have good AoE, be mobile, have an immunity, and be able to attack from a distance

You just perfectly described a fire mage.